Showing results by narrator "Rory Stewart" in All Categories

Rory Stewart's sparsely poetic and highly acclaimed account of his walk across Afghanistan in January 2002 has been hailed as a modern classic of travel writing. Traveling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible mountainous route, Stewart was nearly defeated by the hostile conditions. With the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way, however, he survived to report back on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war.

Rory Stewart was an unlikely politician. He was best known for his two-year walk across Asia—in which he crossed Afghanistan, essentially solo, in the months after 9/11—and for his service, as a diplomat in Iraq, and Afghanistan. But in 2009, he abandoned his chair at Harvard University to stand for a seat in Parliament, representing the communities and farms of the Lake District and the Scottish border—one of the most isolated and beautiful districts in England.

Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.

Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles between England and Scotland. Stewart was raised along the border of the two countries, the frontier taking on poignant significance in his understanding of what it means to be both Scottish and English, of his relationship with his father, who's lived on this land his whole life, and of his ties to the rich history and culture of the region.

Told from Stewart's distinctly Western perspective, The Prince of the Marshes chronicles his time acting as the deputy governor of two southern Iraqi provinces.

In January 2002, Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan, surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day, he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past.

At the age of 30, Rory Stewart was appointed coalition deputy governor of two provinces in the Marsh region of southern Iraq. He kept a journal of his experiences struggling to control assassinations and tribal conflict, rebuild the region's infrastructure, and establish a new Iraqi government before the hand over of power in June 2004. His time in the Marsh region culminated in a terrifying siege during which he and his team were under sustained attack by insurgents.

Rory Stewart has had a far-reaching career over a multitude of different countries and positions. Having been educated at Eton and then Oxford University, Stewart went on to join the Foreign Office where he worked primarily in military intervention and international development, serving in Jakarta and Southern Iraq. Following these postings, Stewart walked alone across Afghanistan, relying on its people to house him on his way. He consequently wrote a book about this journey, and has gone on to become a bestselling author.